Over the past three decades Professor Louis H. Feldman has written
extensively and with great erudition on the Jew in the Greco-Roman world.
He has now assembled his major articles listed in the Preface xi-xii in
this impressive volume. They deal with the influence of Hellenism in
Palestine and in the Diaspora, the contact between Jews and Gentiles, the
attitudes of the Gentile world toward Jews and the involvement of the Jews
in proselytism. He notes that "most of them have been altered very
substantially," but unfortunately he has not indicated in the body of the
text or
in the notes the nature of these alterations, which would have been
helpful for the reader. Likewise there is no indication of any change of
mind on the part of the author as to his earlier conclusions. Since the
work draws upon his many articles there is much repetition of material,
which is unfortunate. The volume contains 11 chapters together with a
concluding section and it is well indexed and well annotated.

Feldman's use of the sources shows that he is a master of Greek and Latin
literature, the Bible and rabbinic sources. One criticism in this area is
that while Feldman is always careful in attempting to date the Latin and
Greek sources with precision, when dealing with biblical material he tries
to avoid precise dating. This avoidance seems to be due to the religious
agenda which he brings to his scholarship. Evidence of this agenda is his
use of G-d, L-rd, imitatio d-i, and G-ttesfuerchtigen in
order
to
avoid
writing out the name God in any language. This preference does not affect
his scholarship, but a different aspect does in other connections. He
skirts the issue of whether the Book of Esther is an historical work or a
work of fiction. Instead of taking a position he dismisses the issue by
stating, "The historicity of the whole episode (in Esther) has been
challenged on grounds that we know of no official named Haman and no
queens named Vashti and Esther; but this is really irrelevant" (p.85).
Scientific biblical scholars, unfettered by rigid literalism, are of one mind
that the Book of Isaiah is the product of at least two hands, Isaiah son
of Amoz of the eighth century and an anonymous writer called
Deutero-Isaiah of the sixth. Others have posited yet a third, Trito
Isaiah, as the author of chapts. 57-66. Feldman avoids this issue
completely. For example, "But we can see in the prophet Isaiah and in the
books of Ezra and Nehemiah that even before the Hellenistic period the
Jews were favorably inclined toward the Persians" (p.13). How much
before? Is this the Isaiah of the eighth century or the anonymous prophet
living some two hundred years later? Feldman, against the school of modern
biblical criticism, is unwilling to admit any Greek influence
on the Book of Ecclesiastes or reference to Hellenistic times in the Book
of Daniel. He offers weak rebuttals to the widely held views that these
books do indeed reflect the Hellenistic age (p.16). His position
apparently is due to his commitment to the talmudic statement that "With
the death of the last of the prophets Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi
prophecy ceased from Israel" (Yoma 9b). Since all biblical books were
thought to have been composed under divine influence, no book could then
have entered the Canon that had been authored after this terminus ad
quem. He even protects Ben Sira, an extra-canonical work, from Hellenistic
influence, which is in line with his view that "the evidence for
appreciable influence of Greek thought on the Jews of Palestine prior to
the Hasomeans is slight" (p.18).

Feldman, to his credit, is
extremely careful to point out that the use of all of these sources
involves a great deal of speculation and inference. Because the sources
preserved concerning the Jews in the Hellenistic world are relatively few
and scattered in the literature, the researcher is best advised to phrase
his or her findings using the subjunctive. Feldman does this throughout
the book. In listing, for example, "the special factors that attracted
non-Jews to become 'sympathizers' with Judaism at this time" he lists
thirty-one and in each paragraph he employs the language of suggestion,
conjecture and possibility (pp.372ff).

Only in one source which
he cites does this reviewer suggest that the subject cited is to be
understood as referring to a group not generally assumed. Feldman writes,
"Indeed, genuine contact with the pagans must have been slight, because on
only one occasion (Matt. 6.7, whose historicity is suspect) does Jesus
refer to pagan practices, namely when he criticizes the Gentiles heaping
up empty phrases in their prayers" (p.24). "Gentiles" is the translation
of the Greek ethnikoi and occurs only five times in the New
Testament,
three times in Matthew, 5.47; 6.7; 18.17; once in Gal. 2.14 and once in
III John 7. Matthew, when referring to the non-Jewish world, usually
employs ethnos. Only in these three passages does he use
ethnikoi which
Jerome renders in Latin ethnici while in Gal. and III John he
translates
ethnikoi by gentibus. Presumably Jerome realized that
ethnikoi
was
not
used as a general term for the non-Jew by Matthew but that it designated a
specific group. Since Matthew's audience was made up primarily of Jews it
is reasonable to conclude that he was referring to a group within the
Jewish community. We suggest that it refers to the -am ha'aretz,
literally
the people of the land, a term used for the ignorant, and the unlettered.
From the context
the ethnikoi have more in common with the ignorant who out of
their
ignorance of the nature of prayer pray with a superfluity of words,
thinking that thereby their prayer will be heard, than with the
gentile-pagan who could have been quite learned and aware of the meaning
of prayer and its efficacy and did not engage in verbose prayer. (See my
"Studies in the Semitic Background to the Gospel of Matthew" JQR
Vol. LXVII [1977] 203-207.)

One of the basic theses of the book
is that Hellenism did not make great inroads into the lives of the Jews of
Palestine. In taking this position, Feldman stands against such scholars
as Saul Lieberman, David Daube, Yitzhak Baer Elimelekh Halevi and Henry
Fischel, who have shown "that the rabbis were influenced not merely in
their vocabulary (approximately twenty-five hundred to three thousand
different words in the Talmudic corpus are of Greek origin) but also in
their method of Platonic-like dialectic, as well as in their techniques
of analysis and in their motifs" (p.31). His refutation of this evidence
is weak and unconvincing. For example, he comments that "it is significant
that the words borrowed from the Greek appear in such realms as military
affairs, politics, law, administration, trade, items of food, clothing,
household utensils, and building materials, and almost never in religious,
philosophical, or literary passages" (p.32). These examples are hardly a
refutation; they indicate just how
pervasive this influence was. Hebrew has terms in these areas, but
preference was given to Greek terms. The rabbis had no need for Greek
terms in the field of religious, philosophical and literary passages since
at this time the rabbis of Palestine had no interest in pursuing the
study of philosophy and allied subjects. They actually interdicted such
study, as even Feldman maintains.

Although Feldman admits the
similarities between Stoicism, Platonism and Epicureanism and Jewish
teaching, he is unwilling to admit any influence of these philosophies on
Jewish thought. He writes, "Comparing the attitude of the rabbis in
medieval Babylonia and Spain toward Greek philosophy, we see a striking
difference; in the Middle Ages many of the writings of Plato and Aristotle
were translated into Arabic and Hebrew and annotated. On the other hand,
not a single Jew from the land of Israel in antiquity distinguished
himself in philosophy" (p.34). The reason for this difference is that
during the Hellenistic period the Jews of Palestine rejected philosophy as
a meaningful study to be applied to their traditional religious literature
because they identified philosophy with the paganism of the Greeks and
their life-style. Only when Greek philosophical and scientific texts were
employed by the monotheistic Arabs were the rabbis motivated to pursue its
study. Furthermore, although in the Hellenistic period this was not done
in Palestine, it is not to say that the rabbis did not read these works
and did not take away some of the ideas which they felt were compatible
with their own tradition.

In chapter two Feldman emphasizes the
strength of Judaism in the Diaspora where the impact of Hellenistic
culture was undeniably strong and pervasive. He minimizes incidents of
intermarriage and apostasy or free thinking among Jews and sees deviation
from Jewish tradition due to "simply non observance" (p.83). It would then
be interesting to know how he explains the virtual disappearance of the
Alexandrian Jewry which was the largest and most flourishing Jewish
community in the Diaspora.

Feldman's attempt to minimize
Hellenistic influences on rabbinic interpretation of Scripture is weak in
the face of the convincing examples adduced by Lieberman (Hellenism in
Jewish Palestine [New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1950]
pp.47-82).
He
selects the allegory and the hermeneutic rule of gezerah as being
problematical but ignores a host of other examples of borrowings and
influences which are generally accepted as legitimate. "In the field of
law," he writes "although there are nearly two hundred Greek and Latin
terms of law, narrowly defined, in rabbinic literature, the vast majority
appear only in aggadic texts (containing homiletic expositions of the
Bible); less than fifty appear in halakhic (legal) contexts, and
remarkably few actually entered the rabbis' legal vocabulary" (p.35). But
the fact that these terms were in use indicates influence and it matters
not that most are employed in aggadic rather than in halakhic passages.

Feldman, by omission, apparently gives no validity to the theory
that the Seder ritual of the Passover celebration developed in imitation
of or under the influence of the Greek symposia literature (see S. Stein,
"The Influence of Symposia Literature on the Literary Form of the Pesah
Haggadah" Journal of Jewish Studies 8 [1957] 13-44). It is an
attractive
theory and should have been treated by the author.

Chapters seven
and eight, entitled "The Attraction of the Jews: The Cardinal Virtues" and
"The Attraction of the Jews: The Ideal Leader Moses," are clearly intended
to introduce the concluding chapters 9-11, which deal with Jewish
proselytism. Feldman
writes, "If the Jews were viewed in antiquity with the disdain and
contempt that most scholars claim, we must somehow explain how during the
very same period they attracted, as we shall see, so many proselytes and
'sympathizers'" (p.201). To make his point Feldman adduces words of
praise of the Jews by pagan intellectuals for their espousal of the four
cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, temperance and justice. First, it
should be noted that these comments are of the pagan intellectuals and do
not necessarily reflect the views of the common man from whose ranks most
prospective proselytes would come. Second, most of the quotations deal not
with contemporary Jews but with the heroes of Jewish history, particularly
Moses. That these encomia indicate such admiration of the Jews that they
would motivate the pagan to convert is highly unlikely. Feldman in both
chapters emphasizes Josephus' comments on the four virtues of Jewish
heroes. Josephus does so only in order to answer the anti-Jewish attacks
of those pagans who were maligning Jews. Feldman's treatment of Josephus
is excellent but is irrelevant to his presentation and argument, i.e. the
attraction of the Jews.

In three chapters dealing with Jewish
proselytism, Feldman opposes most scholars and argues that Jewish
proselytism was both widespread and very successful during the Hellenistic
period. This is the best argued part of the book but by no means are his
argument and proofs conclusive. There is little direct evidence either
for his thesis or for an opposing one. Primarily he bases his position on
the conjectures of demographers who point out that in just a few centuries
the ranks of the Jewish people swelled with significant numbers. This was
due, argues Feldman, to the success of a concerted effort by the Jewish
establishment to gain converts for their religious group. Together with
this demographic conjecture Feldman offers four direct proofs and other
indirect ones. The first is Matthew (23.13) "Woe to you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites! For you traverse sea and land to make a single
proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a
child of hell as yourselves." He freely admits that "the passage in
Matthew may well be tendentious and because it is not found in the other
gospels, may reflect his special interest" (p.298). The second is an
aggadic statement of the third century that Rabbi Johanan and Rabbi
Eliezer declared (Pesahim 87b) that God exiled Israel among the nations
in order to facilitate proselytism (p.339). This may simply be a pious
attempt to explain the Exile, rather than proof that Jews were successful
in their efforts to gain souls. The third is various legislation
prohibiting proselytism by Jews. This does not, however, indicate the
degree of active proselytism on the part of the Jews. The legislation
might well be intended to prevent pagans from accepting Judaism, while
placing the blame upon the Jews who accepted them. The fourth is the
demographic evidence. He cites Baron that "at the time of the destruction
of the First Temple in 586 B.C.E. the Jewish population of pre-exilic
Judea which contained the major part of the Jewish population numbered no
more than 150,000 and that by the middle of the first century the total
number of Jews in the world had risen to about eight million" (p.293).
Feldman
concludes that "only proselytism can account for this vast increase." But
he goes on to state in the same line "though admittedly aggressive
proselytism is only one possible explanation for the numerous
conversions." Feldman raises two basic questions in connection with the
subject of proselytism: First, "Was Judaism in the Hellenistic-Roman
period (from Alexander the Great to Bar Kochba [336 B.C.E.-135 C.E.]) a
missionary religion?" and second, "If it was, how can we explain this fact
when we neither know the names of any Jewish missionaries (other than a
few who preached the Gospel) nor possess as it seems a single missionary
tract?" (p.289) These are significant questions for which no definite
solutions are easily forthcoming either by Feldman or by others who differ
with him. He has made a thoughtful case for one point on proselytism and
the other subjects presented in this learned volume. It serves as a
balance against opposing positions.